Japan’s Mount Ontake volcano erupted without warning on Saturday, sending plumes of heavy, toxic volcanic ash and rock into the air, and causing embers to fall nearly two miles from its crater.

So far, 12 victims have been retrieved from the mountain, identified, and confirmed dead. Today, Nagano Prefecture Police said that 24 bodies remain on the slopes of the volcano, bringing the suspected death toll to at least 36.

More than 500 rescuers returned to the scene today. It is not yet clear how the victims died, but asphyxiation from poisonous gases is common in eruptions of this kind. This helicopter footage shows the ongoing rescue mission.

An unmanned Antares rocket ferrying supplies to the International Space Station exploded Tuesday just six seconds after liftoff at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport in Wallops, Virginia. No personnel were near the rocket when it exploded, and no injuries have been reported by NASA.

The Antares rocket appeared to abruptly lose upward momentum after it launched, falling back toward the ground before exploding in mid-air.

The Antares — a medium-lift rocket — was carrying a Cygnus spacecraft packed with about 5,000 pounds of cargo to take to the International Space Station. NASA confirmed at 6:45pm ET that all personnel were accounted for. Officials on NASA TV reported significant property and vehicle damage.

One of the two people killed in the shootout in Ottawa this morning has been identified by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) as Nathan Cirillo, a 24-year old Canadian soldier from Hamilton.

Ottawa police had confirmed at a press conference earlier this afternoon that two people died in the incidents early today, but did not identify either, only saying that a soldier had been killed and “a male suspect has also been confirmed deceased.”

US officials later told CBS News the name of the dead Ottawa shooting suspect is Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, a Canadian born in 1982.

Investigators and lawmakers have linked the Chattanooga shooter to ISIS-inspired groups, but evidence so far suggests otherwise. According to the gunman’s family, they sent him to Jordan for seven months to live with his uncle in the hope that he’d clean up his act and stop drinking.

This mother and daughter transcend the boundaries of race – and try to bring Charleston together.

A one-minute quick-turnaround edit for Al Jazeera’s AJ+ following the shooting of nine black people by a white man in Charleston, South Carolina. The video, originally published on the AJ+ Facebook and Youtube pages, as well as being picked up by other media, received almost 600,000 views.

A team of Spanish civil and forensic aviation experts arrived in Bamako, Mali, on Saturday to investigate the crash of Air Algérie Flight 5017, Spain’s government said. The plane, operated by Swiftair SA, a Spanish charter company, crashed on Thursday, killing all 118 people aboard, including two pilots and four crew members, all Spaniards. The cause of the crash is still unknown.